Fortune cookie talk involves a phrase which a) sounds a lot like the generic sayings one gets from opening a fortune cookie (no insult to the cookies intended) ; b) sounds profound (and isn’t), and c) actually means nothing if you think about it for a minute.
Fortune cookie talk is common with new agers, the new breed of elearners, marketers and the like, and makes up a significant portion of “educated” traffic on microblog platforms like Twitter.
How Do You Recognize This Kind of Meaningless Utterance?
Let’s take the following example from @marciamarcia who, for some reasons seems to brim over with this kind of phrasing.
She says, in a Tweet on Feb. 6, 2010 which is retweeted dozens of times, presumably out of respect:
Training gives people solutions to probs already solved. Collaboration solves new problems none have solved before.
Think about this really hard. The first part may apply to dogs and horses but it has no mapping to reality with humans. As for the second part, clearly collaboration doesn’t necessarily solve new problems nobody has solved before, and often it doesn’t result in effectively problem solving at all.
But doesn’t it sound so slick? So cool and profound?
This, and a lot of online meaningless utterances capture the attention and admiration of a lot of people who would rather repeat things that sound nifty, than think for themselves.
Is this a problem? Perhaps not so much on its own — we do live in a marketing based society where truth is relegated way beyond cool sounding in terms of what becomes popular and accepted, BUT what happens when meaningless utterances become the stuff of decision making and policy?
#1 by Milan Davidovic on February 7, 2010 - 4:12 pm
This post brings to mind — perhaps for the wrong reasons — some things I’ve been reading recently. Would you agree that the problems you describe are not so new and that perhaps a look back in history will give us some clues as to how to respond to them now?
This, from Cicero’s “De Inventione”:
“I have often and deeply resolved this question in my mind, whether fluency of language has been beneficial or injurious to men and to cities, with reference to the cultivation of the highest order of eloquence. For when I consider the disasters of our own republic, and when I call to mind also the ancient calamities of the most important states, I see that it is by no means the most insignificant portion of their distresses which has originated from the conduct of the most eloquent men.”
More here:
http://classicpersuasion.org/pw/cicero/dnv1-1.htm
This, from the introduction to Gerald Kennedy’s translation of Aristotle’s “On Rhetoric”:
“In Plato’s dialog _Gorgias_ Socrates criticizes civic rhetoric in fifth century B.C.E. Athens as essentially a form of flattery — morally irresponsible and not based on knowledge of truth or sound logic.”
Google Books overview (no preview) here:
http://bit.ly/OnRhetoric
(I suppose I should hunt up Gorgias itself and read it, but that’ll have to wait… )
This, from Bertrand Russell’s essay “The Problem of Leisure”:
“For want of a grasp of the elementary principles of distribution and exchange, public opinion forces governments to adopt foolish expedients, which only increase the evils they are intended to cure. If more people understood the causes of prosperity and depression, it would be much less difficult than it is to emerge from bad times.”
Care of Google Books, the full essay here:
http://bit.ly/ProblemLeisure
#2 by Bill Gascoyne on February 7, 2010 - 4:18 pm
She had a pretty gift for quotation, which is a serviceable substitute for wit.
W. Somerset Maugham (1874-1965), “The Creative Impulse”
Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.
Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
Stay at home in your mind. Don’t recite other people’s opinions. I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)
I always have a quotation for everything–it saves original thinking.
Dorothy L. Sayers
#3 by Robert Bacal on February 7, 2010 - 6:56 pm
Definitely not new, but now every fool and idiot can get public exposure much more easily. The easier it is to reach large numbers of people, the easier it may be to hold sway without substance, it seems.
#4 by Robert Bacal on February 7, 2010 - 6:57 pm
Too funny, Bill. Good classic quotes that actually have meaning, yes?
Wonder what it means that the biggest chunks of nonsense sometimes seem to be repeated over and over gain, presumably because people think it’s worth others reading.
#5 by Milan Davidovic on February 8, 2010 - 9:58 am
The rise in technology floats *all* boats, no? Perhaps all that has really increased is the overall noise level.
#6 by Robert Bacal on February 9, 2010 - 4:33 pm
I think the ratio of disciplined inquiry based information to junk has worsened as a result of the Internet, for many reasons.
Anyway Milan, I don`t think it floats all boats equally. Disciplined journalists and authors and reputable sources used to be publishable while my aunt Lolo wasn`t. Now everyone`s aunt Lolo (who is blond and dim) can post due to the popularization of the media.
So, it`s possible you are right, but I don`t think so.
Seems I lost threading here when I changed themes.
#7 by Milan Davidovic on February 21, 2010 - 6:39 pm
How does everyone’s Aunt Lolo’s newfound ability to publish diminish the publishability of disciplined journalists, authors, and reputable sources?
#8 by Robert Bacal on February 21, 2010 - 8:39 pm
Milan, I think there is an argument to be made that the glut of posts from “everyman” in addition to other shifts is making access to work from disciplined journalists, etc, more difficult.
..or perhaps that the desire to read and interpret data and good journalism has diminished in the general population while the desire to read the latest trash from Aunt Lolo seems to have increased.
I don’t think we can tease out direct cause and effect, but given the death of many paper publishing endeavors, and the difficulty in monetizing access to scholarly material, etc, perhaps the end result is the same.
If you get a chance take a look at my blog post for small business, commenting on an ABC piece which is complete utter crap. http://smallbusiness411.org/wp/small-business-and-twitter/false-claims-for-efficacy-of-social-media-for-small-business-on-abc-no-bs-guide-to-twitter-for-small-business/
This is common. Is it also the case that because the populace is so unthinking and does not want to think, that the number of reputable journalists and scholars is diminishing as is the quality of their work? Because consumer standards are so low, due to Aunt Lolo?
Something is happening here, and you don’t know what it is, Do you Mr. Jones – dumtadumdum
#9 by Milan Davidovic on February 22, 2010 - 8:44 pm
Those other shifts, might some of them be related to economics?
I wonder if there’s an overall trend of increasing stinginess at work here — both in terms of money and attention. Perhaps the same forces that drive down aspects of the quality of material goods over time are cheapening aspects of our information as well.
I’m not saying it’s all economics, but perhaps it’s part of the picture.
#10 by Robert Bacal on February 22, 2010 - 9:04 pm
Your comment sparked a thought and that is the law of supply and demand. Maybe because there is SO much information available, there is no “consumer pressure” for any particular source to adhere to moral or ethical standards, as there once was perhaps for the near monopolies of the media.
Just speculating. I wonder if people study this stuff…they must.